The present invention relates generally to monitoring the space environment around a planet from platforms and satellites in geosynchronous orbit around said planet and providing the information gathered to subscribers who have a need for the information and its use. Monitoring by both passive (detection only) and active (propagation and detection) means is used to observe repeatedly or continuously features and events in the environment of interest. There are multiple applications of the present invention; it will be best understood in the context of a system, which will provide extensive, repeated updates of the contents of space surrounding a planet, such as earth.
Several thousand satellites have been launched over the past 40-odd years since Sputnik. Many have been used to observe the earth, and some have traveled millions of miles to observe and in some cases monitor the surfaces of the giant planets and their moons; nearer at hand, others have monitored surfaces of Mercury, Venus and Mars for shorter or longer periods until their batteries ran out. By far, the most common observation purpose for these vehicles and/or satellites has been to determine the nature of the earth""s surface and that of other planetary bodies within the solar system. Within this context one may include the geosurvey satellites, and the weather satellites, which, while less concerned with the surface itself than with atmospheric effects, are still primarily focused inwards, toward the primary (e.g., planet earth), passively observing the status of the atmosphere. Military satellites are also among the surface-observing sort. Many other satellites have been used to provide stable platforms for communications, from fixed, known positions relative to ground coordinates, of either the one-to-one type such as the telephone or one-to-many such as television. Data links via telephone enable planetary-based communications in some cases over the Internet, largely in the form of text electronic mail (xe2x80x9cemailxe2x80x9d ). Such satellites include the known commercial satellites; that is, communications, weather, geosurvey satellites, among others, and provide information with commercial value.
Substantially fewer satellites are engaged in the gathering of astronomical data, where advantages over ground-based observing include freedom from atmospheric effects, and absence of a daylight limitation. Atmospheric effects include the obvious ones of poor weather, light pollution and other visual disturbances, and the less commonly recognized normal filtering due to the atmosphere of certain electromagnetic radiation (EMR) frequencies like infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), some radio frequency wavelengths and x-rays. Special satellites for observing astronomical sources are known to include x-ray, infrared and ultraviolet detectors, and the Hubble telescope most famously gathers visible light. The Hipparcos telescope was designed to gather background images of stars to prepare a map of the sidereal sphere. Such satellites are deployed for academic and scientific purposes.
The special purpose astronomical satellites (x-ray, IR, UV) are often deployed in orbits convenient to observe particular directions of expected activity, and are not designed to gather wide views repetitively, but rather narrow, deep views. Similarly, the value of Hubble is in its light-gathering capability for deep-space viewing of emitting sources (and shadows due to intervening matter).
None of the above satellites has been designed or deployed for generalized monitoring of space, nor have they been deployed for commercial purposes. While some may arguably be addressed to enable some sense of such capabilities, they have been single-launch missions lacking the special combination of active and passive detection means, orbit location, programming, distribution channels and other infrastructure to accomplish the monitoring and presentation aims of the present invention and none has been reportedly used for such monitoring and presentation.
Ground-based systems, primarily visual telescopes are known to observe limited segments of the sky. Such systems suffer the deficiencies of all ground-based systems, however, including the aforementioned atmospheric limitations, night-only viewing periods, and gaps of information not gathered or gathered irregularly. A single radio-frequency telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, observes numerous segments of the radio-frequency spectrum, by definition as a detector of active signals, and specifically designed to filter out substantial noise in search of controlled signals. Ground-based interference is the most substantial contributor to the signals detected. None has means for active monitoring, as defined above, such means being impractical from ground-based systems. Neither ground-based systems nor satellite-based systems have been used to provide direct, real-time feed of information to a wide audience.
With the above limitations of the current technology in mind, it is an object of the present invention to provide both active and passive means for repeatedly monitoring space around an orbital body in space, above and free of the body""s atmospheric interference, and to provide the information to a wide audience. According to the present invention, there is provided one or more satellites equipped with visual and other electromagnetic radiation (EMR) sensors and optionally, visible and other EMR transmitters facing away from the orbital body, so disposed and located as to provide information about the status of space, and interfaced with transmission to other like satellites, ground-stations and direct-feed customers. These and additional benefits of the present invention will become clear from the following description of the preferred embodiments.
An object of the present invention is to provide a system for monitoring of space near the planet for rendezvousing foreign bodies.
Another purpose of the present invention is the monitoring of space to provide information on bodies"" positions, sizes, colors, motions and the like benefiting from the undistorted view of the heavens and frequent updating processes provided by the present invention.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a framework of use of geosynchronous satellites to economically monitor space.
The objects, advantages and features of the present invention are readily apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment for carrying out the invention when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.
The present invention is a method of utilizing a satellite system in orbit around a planet, such as earth, for conducting low-cost, wide-view, near-space monitoring; collecting astronomical and space-environmental information and transmitting said astronomical and space-environmental information to users who need that information. The satellite system comprises: modifying at least one telecommunications satellite of a telecommunications satellite system, said modifications comprising: an observation and detection means disposed on the outboard side of the satellite, a communications, command and control means for said observation and detection means. Then launching at least one said modified telecommunications satellite into a synchronous orbit around said planet; and orienting said modified telecommunications satellite so the telecommunications means face the orbited planet and the observation and detection means face generally away from said planet. Then controlling the operation and orientation of the observation and detection means independently of the host satellite system""s operation and orientation system. The satellite system then is used for gathering astronomical and space-environmental information via the observation and detection means and providing an electronic output containing the astronomical and space-environmental information. Then transmitting said astronomical and space-environmental information to at least one ground-based station capable of receiving said astronomical and space-environmental information. The ground-based station comprises at least one, display means, retransmission means, signal processing, and interpretation means, a command and control communications means, and providing said astronomical and space-environmental information for a fee to various users.